The Prestige TV Podcast - 'Atlanta’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Van Lathan and Charles Holmes are back to break down the seventh episode of ‘Atlanta’ Season 3, “Trini 2 De Bone.” They discuss the dynamics between nannies, their biological family, and the children they care for, as well as the intense emotional experiences that can come up at a funeral. Hosts: Van Lathan and Charles Holmes Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey. We've got something special cooking on the Prestige TV podcast. I'll be recapping one of my favorite shows, HBO's Barry, every Sunday night with the writer-director star of the show, The Great Bill Hater. We'll talk about the show's wild twists and turns, its special brand of dark comedy, and how it all came together. So on Sunday nights, immediately after a new episode airs, you can hear Bill and I break it all down on the Prestige TV pod. Subscribe on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference.

With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Welcome to the Ringers Prestige Podcast. where we are covering Atlanta.

I am Van Laithen, host of Higher Learning with Van Laithen and Rachel Lindsay. Also, half of the Midnight Boys in the Ring ofverse, Poupo. But more importantly, I'm joined by my other half on the Midnight Boys on the Ring of Verse

and the host of the Ring of Music Show, Charles Holmes. We are covering now what is the seventh episode of Atlanta. Seventh episode of Atlanta, Trinny to the Bone, which was written by Jordan Temple, written by Jordan Temple,

a guy who I had an exchange with on Twitter. Jordan Temple has been enjoying our coverage on Atlanta, and he reached out before I had actually seen Trudy to the Bone and me and him had a little back and forth, but this episode was written by him, Charles. This is another anthology episode of Atlanta where we don't see the main cast, and we don't pick back up on Van and Earn's Night Together,

where we don't pick back up on what Paperboy feels like following his stint with white fashion. We are back into a different story that has to do with American society's proximity to blackness, which I feel like all of the running theme of all of these anthology stories have been. How do you feel about leaving Van Erne and Darius for another episode here in number seven? I got to keep it real. You know, I always got to shoot from the hip. This was tough.

Not because the episode was bad, but, like, momentum-wise, I think we had finally gotten two back-to-back episodes that had thrust us into the main narrative. And it was a little jarring when I watched this episode because, yeah, I don't even know how to really begin. I, yeah, I just think that this episode is a tough watch after the one that we just got, which was white fashion, because we got to learn so much more about the characters,

where Paperboy is in his career, how much better earn is at his job? And then with turning to the bone, all that stops. And we're kind of like taking back a step to New York. So we're not even in Atlanta. We're not overseas in Europe. We're in this new place learning about this new family. And I think that there are moments in this episode

that are truly hilarious. like I was laughing out loud. But I started to feel like the fans have been feeling, which is kind of like, yo, it's hard. I'm finding it hard to grab on. Right. So I get it. And I understand that a lot of people are going to feel that way.

And I asked the question on Twitter, whether or not people were consuming this season of Atlanta, like they have past seasons because it just doesn't seem to be the fanfare around the show. Like, they have been in past seasons. And a lot of people say they couldn't get into it. it wasn't the same. They waited too long. All of the things you would hear. And then a lot of people talked about the fact that, you know, we're not getting as much with the core crew as we've gotten in years before.

I'm on record by saying I love these, whatever it is that they're doing. I feel like they found another show. I really feel like they found another show. It's another show. I mean, Donald Glover himself, he went on Jimmy Kimmel. And he said that it was, it's always been his dream, even back when he was creating Atlanta, to do more short stories, to do more short films. So I actually think that since season one, they've been slowly but surely creeping to this version of the show. I just think that being away for four years, we missed the core crew.

And I would also say, and let me know if I'm tripping, I believe Stephen Glover, who has written some of my favorite episodes on the show has said that most of these episodes were written in 2019. I do think that there's a layer of some of the jokes in this season don't feel as fresh because our culture is so hyper, like forward in terms of just like. No, no, we're so, things last for short term. We move so quickly. It moves so fast. Exactly.

So like when there's a joke about ASAP Rocky in Sweden or like 21 Savage, not really being from Atlanta. Part of my brain is like, God damn, wait, when did that happen? That was only three years ago. Shit, or like even when, like, last episode when we were talking about Dorey and all of that, I was just like, damn, this reference happened three years ago. Like, my mind sometimes has to catch up to what the show is doing or actually traveled back in time

to be like, oh, yeah, that's what we were talking about in 2019. Right. Well, we should say in this episode, it starts around a family, a family that had, a Trinidadian caregiver to their young son, Sebastian. This caregiver dies. Prior to the death of the caregiver, though, the family, which seems, which is a white American dream, white father, white mother, they live in the Jenga building in New York, which I can see right now from where I'm at, which is this really crazy looking high-rise that's in Manhattan. that I never, it's so funny that I was talking to somebody yesterday

and actually is Kathy Gordon from my book company and she goes, my book, Fat Crazy and Tire Tales from the Transformation is out right now. Get it wherever books are sold. So I was talking to Kathy from my publisher company and she says they call it the Jenga building. I'm like, it's like one of the most, every time I'm here, whether I'm saying in LES,

whether I'm staying in Manhattan, I see the building. I'm like, oh, okay, it's like a very signature New York building to me. And they use it as an establishing shot. Then, of course, this is where the family lives. So that would tell you they're doing very well in life. They can afford to have a caregiver for their young son.

Their son goes to private school. This guy drives a range rover. They are, like, wealth and success is all over them. Now, even prior to the death of Sylvia, who was their nanny, we can see that she's having an effect on their son, and they hadn't realized it. That is the funny. Like, when that starts happening, when the mom brings home an ex-Bedededek, And I think the genius part of it is like, I was kind of questioning.

I'm like, is this his mom? Because she treats Bash with almost this, like, distance being like, yeah, I ordered a coffee for us. And he got an ex Benedict. And the kid turns to, it's just like, I don't want to eat it. It's bland, which is so funny. And then he's like, I want mango curry. Right. The seasoning to put over it.

And the thing that even happens before that is that he's watching the proud family. It's like this young white kid. so you could already tell in the back of your mind how much this caregiver is changing his worldview very, very slowly, and even the parents aren't realizing it's happening. Yeah, they aren't, right?

Like, and another thing happens is he eats the curry, he eats it, he just, and the dad decides to try it, and when the dad decides to try it, it destroys his taste buds because he is so far removed from what his, son what his son's taste are. He doesn't realize how much the culture of Sylvia and the warmth

and connection that Sylvia has had with their son has influenced their son, which to me is the point of this episode, which is to me the driving force of this episode. Okay, so then Sylvia dies. Sylvia dies. They get the word that Sylvia has died, and the rest of it becomes how much of this, do the mother and the father expose their son to? Do they take him to Sylvia's funeral? How do they explain to him that Sylvia is no longer going to be with them? And while doing this, they're discovering a bond and a relationship that is insanely meaningful to their son, but that they actually have no clue about.

and it's making them feel more isolated from the boy, but also more intrigued about who she actually was. And this woman who had been in her house, who had been a part of them, who had been a surrogate mother to their son, they didn't know anything about her. And as much as the father continues to throw out these facts that he read about music, about slavery, about whatever,

all of that knowledge isn't familiarity. That's not familiarizing yourself with Sylvia. They got more knowledge about who Sylvia was by going to her funeral than actually while she was alive. And that was very powerful to me because I feel like that is sort of a,

I feel like white people learn about black culture through sorrow. They learn about black culture through how we view America when something really terrible happens. And while we're alive and giving to America, while we're alive and contributing to America, while we're alive and actually recognizing and adding to the fabric and culture of America,

we are largely ignored. They had been raising her son. His favorite songs were from her. His favorite shows were from her. His favorite foods were from her. He wants to play steel pan. Like, you know what I mean? No, he goes to church.

He goes to a black church. And he is in it. He's like, his parents are just kind of like, what is going on? He's doing the like the amen's. And he looks at this culture not from a, like he's not reading it from Wikipedia like his dad is. He's actually views it in this loving way. But I want to kind of zoom out what I think that this episode is doing.

And what I think is kind of genius about the three episodes that we've seen that have not have been a part of the main narrative, is that they're all essentially about family. In the first episode, we see that the white lesbian couple and how their relationship to blackness and raising black children is so, is so fraught and dangerous. It's almost to them a status symbol of their good white people and culture. In the second episode, the reparations episode, we see that the white husband only can understand the black mom when he goes on her Instagram and sees the love that she has for her children. And that's the kind of thing that helps him cross the threshold being like, she just wants to help her family get a better

life. And in this third episode, we see a Trinidad and a black woman helping this young white boy through life, loving him in a way that his parents, at least at this point, are incapable of. And I think seeing these episodes kind of through that lens of like, what are they saying about family and how race affects it? Because the other thing that's happening in this episode is that for Sylvia to do this for this white child, she had to sacrifice her motherhood for her own children. And her children are kind of trying to come to grips with like everybody saying all of this amazing stuff about this woman, but I feel like I was robbed of some of that

because she was trying to provide financially. Right. So let's talk about that right now. I am going to talk. I texted him earlier because I hadn't watched the episode, right? I am going to talk to Jordan Temple. This experience was my life. My grandmother died in the year 2003 or 2004, my dad's mother.

When she passed away, I went to her funeral, right? My grandmother, who I, you know, obviously known all my life, she was my father's mother, I went to her funeral, and there were all of these white people there. Now, I had known that my grandmother was a nanny, right?

Because every now and again, well, not every now and again, you'd go to her house, and there would be pictures of us up there, my sister and I, but then there will also be pictures of white kids. There would be pictures of them, up there as well and I go there

and I see kids like my same age a little bit younger than me crying, freaked out. I'm like, who are rich people? And I'm like, who are they? It's like, oh, those are, and they knew my dad. Like, those are kids that your grandmother kept. Those are them. I had never met them

before. Maybe one time I think I can remember meeting with them. I've never met them before. My father wasn't raised by my grandmother. My father was raised by his grandparents. See, his grandparents raised him. Big mama and big papa. My grandmother Medea, she didn't, she didn't raise him. She gave my dad up to his grandparents, whatever she was going through when she was a younger woman. Like, I guess it was too much. And my grandparents

raised my dad, right? My dad had 11 brothers and sisters that were really his aunts and uncles. He was much younger than him. So there was even really, to be honest with you, a disconnect. between my father and my grandmother. That was his mom and he loved his mother, but also he had another mother. That was his day in, day out sort of mom. So, like, seeing that and then seeing kids there that looked at her, some of them, come to find out,

that looked at her as more of a mother than their moms where my dad, I'm not saying she was less of a mother, but I'm saying she certainly was a bonus mom in a way she wasn't around. Like he was living with them. So it was like the funeral went down in exact the same way. There were people who loved the fact that these people who were very well off were there to say thank you to my grandmother. But then there were people who resented them being there. There were people that resented them being there because them being there

represented the absence in the life of my grandmother that they had experience. And in terms of a black funeral, right, when you go to a black funeral, in this scene, they go to the Sylvia's funeral. They meet, we're going to talk about Chad Hanks's cameo in this. Shout out, Chad Hanks. That's actually my name. So we're going to talk about Chad Hanks' cameo in this. But they go to the funeral.

And in the funeral, you get everything you get at a black funeral, which is sometimes indicative of our experience, you get this amazing sense of overcoming tragedy and loss, where people go, hey, somebody passed away, but wouldn't they just all be happy that we're here? Let's talk about how amazing they were. Let's laugh, let's dance, let's eat, let's do all of this stuff. But we also can't tuck our trauma.

We're bad at it. We're too emotionally honest to tuck our trauma. In that moment where old lady, where her daughter grabs the mic, and goes in, that shit happens all the time. Wait, can I tell you? I think I might have told you this, but this was like a wild thing that happened. So I had a grandmother.

It was at the funeral. Like the thing that, like, touched me about this episode is I'm like, oh, no, shit do come out at a funeral. Like, all the shit that, like, people have been keeping inside for years, once, like, a matriarch or a patriarch is gone. Like, I think there's a level of respect in the black community. Like, we're not going to talk about this shit when they're here. But I'm light-skinned.

if you seen a photo of me, you know that I am light skin listeners. I was, one of my grandmothers was light skin and she dies. And it had been this big secret where people were like, do you got, well, why do you, blah, blah, blah? And she'd always like, it's Native American. And it's Native America. And she passes away. And then we had to repass. And then like my uncle, who, you know, is a little off the sauce.

He's like, all right, I've been waiting to say this, you know. But y'all white. Y'all got some white in you. And I'm like, what the fuck is, like, what is happening? And like, all my cousins, like my same age is like, oh, shit. I'm like, all right. And like, literally he like goes through this whole family tree of just like who was white on whose side and all of this like racial shit that was happening and why people had to hide it and why people couldn't claim it. And like people do not realize a bunch of this

trauma you don't talk about in life when the elders are alive. You talk about that shit when they are gone. Like that's not what you do. Like so when this like when the daughter gets up there She's like, yo, look, fuck this. I didn't get to have a mom. I'm like, no, that is the emotion that happens when you're like, I've been waiting forever to say this. But I think the other reason that this show touched me, this episode touched me is that I was raised by my grandparents when my, like, parents were trying to make money and stuff. I lived with them. And I got to see a version of them that my uncles and aunts didn't get to see.

a loving version of them, a version that had the time to take me to school, walk me to class. They had softened. They were older, yeah. They had softened. And it was this thing where, like,

there was a little bit of resentment because it felt like my uncle's and aunts were like, yo, I had a dad who was in the military and was strict and it was always about being the best we could. And I come over here and they're like making you peanut butter and jelly and taking you to school and like talking about how good you guys are. And I was like, oh, this is something that happens in the black community because we don't have generational wealth. It's only when older black, like grandparents get to a certain age they can soften.

They're like, I don't have to be just the protector. I can just fully love them because there's that distance. And I was just like, that is a very smart thing to shape an episode. To dissect, right? And then when it crosses cultural lines, when you take someone that's, a cultural alien and bring them into a situation like that and watch how they observe it. Like, I looked at this episode and I didn't get the sense that in any way, and some of the other ones that we've seen, the white characters have been at least

latently nefarious, if I'm being honest with you. They have been. They've been, like, the white, these people just seem like they were blissfully ignorant to social mores and cues out. of their own and trying to do their best with it. They were actually trying to do their best with their son. At the end of the episode, the mother is singing Trinney to the bone. She doesn't try to change the song that he loves.

They understand the cultural investment they've made into Sylvia, and they probably understand something different. All right. I totally disagree with you, but continue. I think they're so, I think they're so sinister in a way that disturbed me. I don't think that they were sinister at all, but we're going to. We can talk about it. So I also think there's something else about them.

I think that they realized that they never really saw their son. And there's a difference with, and love, love isn't easy. Like love isn't a roof. Love isn't anything. Love is like a hug, spiritually, culturally, and emotionally. And I think that Sylvia, as evidenced by those pictures, was putting her hands, putting her arms around the boy, more than they were. And I think it took this for them. And it's almost as if, you know,

the package keeps coming over and over and over again. She's haunting them. Like the specter of this woman who had this immense ability to love throughout all of these circumstances. And when you learn the circumstances of her life, she had been an Alvin Ailey dancer. She had been through so many things. It represents sometimes how, to me, at least, black people, like even in these circumstances, there's this sense of like needing and love from one another that like almost transcends where you would live or who you would be. And that almost sometimes to us, at least in the past, it's felt better than living in the Jingle building.

It's felt better than being on the other side of things. It feels like something that no matter how I feel when I see the police, I wouldn't change get or re-evaluated or want to do away with it for that cultural connection and that feeling that I get from my people in South Louisiana, not for all the money Elon Musk bought Twitter for. You know what I mean? And being in the middle of that, but still knowing that you're going without sometimes, it's kind of confusing.

And it's probably was confusing to the family as people were there. But you were saying you disagree with me. I don't mean to take up too much space. So tell me what's up. I thought the parents were very sinister from the beginning in terms of like, so I'm from, like, not from, but like, I'm from the East Coast. I live in New York right now. That family tells you everything that you need to know kind about the politics of the city,

where when they go, I don't know, where do you think that they were in terms of like when they cross, when they go from Manhattan to her funeral? I wouldn't know because like, I don't know New York like that. But like let's say that's probably not like Manhattan. Like that's not like the city. The city proper. So they say when they cross there like practically in the islands, like that is a very real thing when you've been living in New York where I have like some white friends

who like won't come to Brooklyn. Like this is not what they do. It's like another, it might as well be another world to them because the ecosystem of the city, them living in a high rise means they're essentially. eventually living in a different country from your average immigrants, from like, whether I'm talking about whether you're black, whether you're Mexican, West Indies, I don't give a fuck. If you living in the Bronx or Brooklyn or anywhere like that, you might as well just be living in California.

That's kind of like how much people do not cross. And you see throughout this episode, they're arguing, like, the wife at one point is like, what if we got someone who was a little bit more metropolitan? and then they go back and forth they're like, yeah, but that would be more expensive. And they're like, well, Sylvia wasn't inexpensive and all this stuff. And I'm like, that is so sinister because right at that moment, they did not think of Sylvia as like

a woman, a caretaker who's doing the most important job in their life, which is taking care of their son. They're thinking of her as a product, of someone who delivers her service to them. And that to me is kind of like what hurt about the episode watching it is that just like, yo, they don't, they didn't care. They didn't care until they saw what she did for their son. They didn't think of her as a human or even when they're like cleaning. They're like,

why is all of her stuff in our apartment? I'm like, because she had to live there. She had to literally uproot her entire life to take care of your child. That's the sacrifice. That's something that her daughter and her sons will never get back. You can never buy that time back. And to me, it's like, it's cool that they're starting to understand it by the end of the episode. But I kind of get, I know it's played for last, but I get why the daughter is so upset. Oh, of course I do. Yeah, for sure. She's never, she can never buy that time with her mom back.

You know, money comes and goes, but that time with your mom is so it's the most precious thing that you will ever have in this world. And yeah, it just, that was the part to me that, like, was really sinister and made me just be like, oh, I don't like these people at all. So this is why I love potty. with you because you're not wrong, but yet you still are. Why do you always say that?

Because it's true. You're not wrong, but I still disagree. And I love being in that space. Like, this is two different perspectives that we have on this. I look at sinister. I look at sinister as intention, right? Mm-hmm.

So the hard thing that it is, as being a black person for me, The hardest thing to get white people to understand or other people to understand sometimes is it doesn't matter whether it's intentional or not. All of that matters is that it happens, right? It doesn't matter whether or not it's unintentional that you do something. If it happens and it never changes, it doesn't affect you any less that it's unintentional, right? You didn't mean to miss your, to forget your girl's birthday, which I, or her anniversary. mean to, you're busy. It doesn't make her feel any less bad that you didn't mean to,

or your mom's birthday or whomever's birthday, not to be the hyper-heteronormal, heteronormal with everything. But it doesn't make her feel any different way that you didn't do it on purpose. The only fact, the only way that the fact that you didn't do it on purpose, the only way that that's important is that it means that it's more easily correctable. You see, if you did it on purpose, it denotes that there's a worldview behind it, that there is a mantra behind it, that there's an intentionality behind it that means it's going to take me a lot to change your mind. If you didn't buy your girlfriend's birthday present on purpose and you were trying to ruin her day, now we have to talk about why those reasons are probably a lot deeper than I just forgot.

You can just do the I just forgot with a calendar reminder, or you can talk about deeper. issues or whether or not you should, whatever. So when I look at them and say that they're not sinister, it's not that they're not that they're not callous and they're not unfeeling, is that they don't know that they are. And those are the types of people that it's very interesting for me to try to talk to in a real society and then try to examine when we're looking at art like this.

They don't know that they are. that's the most exciting thing about talking about race and culture in America to me because it leaves so much oxygen for change but it's also the most frustrating thing because sometimes it feels like it's something that you can't change if somebody's doing something

and they don't know that they're doing it. It seems like all you got to do is say, hey, you're doing it and then they're going to go, oh, I didn't know. But if they don't know, they might say, well, then I'm not doing it. You know what I mean? So in the case of this show,

they like I said what happens for black people sometimes and the hole in their life was only created they only realized

what she meant in their lives by the hole that she left and they would have never they didn't even realize that there's a hole in their life

and their son is one of the holes yeah they would never think that their son likes to watch the proud family they don't know what that is they don't know shit about them Sylvia, whose job, because of her

socioeconomic status in America, it is to love their son, she started loving him as a job, and then she started loving him because she loved him. There's a great movie called Clara's Heart, and it's with Whoopi Goldberg and God damn Neil Patrick Harris. Now, there's a part in this movie where Neil Patrick, Neil Patrick Harris gets mad at Whoopi's Goldberg. Whoopi Goldberg is Clara, the Jamaican lady, who takes care of him.

like, well, Neil Patrick Harris gets mad at Clara because she's got to, she's going to go take another job. And he looks at her and he says, I knew you'd leave. You'd just be a nigger in the end. God damn, what? I swear. And I have so many times wanted to put that on Twitter for clout. And like, just for fun, just to fuck people's head up by Neil Patrick Harris,

looking at Whoopie Goldberg and being like, you'll just be a nigger. in the end, but he was only, she didn't even get mad. Like, she was, she was only mad. He was mad because she was leaving. You know what I mean? But anyway, I say all that to say, I agree with you, but I still don't think that they were bad people.

It's just what I call A, A.M.W. Absent-minded whiteness. They just didn't know. And like, look, and there's other ways that I'm absent-minded and stuff like that. So they just did know. Oh, I think they're evil, evil people. I'd more so think that, like, the interesting thing that the episode

won't answer and can't answer is that will they change? And what I mean by that is, is they're talking. She's saying the song at the end. There is singing the song. She's saying the song at the year. I'm telling the fact that she's saying the song at the end,

she's saying that was the, she's saying the song and he finally opened the package. And I think that is, that is great. And I think that is like a positive reading of this situation. I'm Mr. Negative Nancy and I'm like, damn, they talk like, all right, I'll put it to you this way. They only started to understand Sylvia's worth when, oh, she's related to somebody who plays for the Patriots. A word. Oh, she, she did this for my son. She did that for my son. Like, it takes them all of that to know her worth. I think the next step is like, if they get another Sylvia, do they pay her the same amount

that they would pay potentially someone to watch their kid who can teach him Mandarin. That's actually what the next level of just like if you know how important Sylvia was to you or how do you

rectify this situation? How do you pay it forward? And I don't know if that if that... I'll tell you what. We know we ain't get shit from the people that my grandmother took care of. Isn't that a little fucked up though? They out there. I don't know. I don't know what they do

they owe is that they paid her. What did they owe me? You know what I mean? Like they, like, I don't know that they paid her. You ain't want your 40 acres in a mule? God damn,

like, I would love that 40 acres. You know that 40 acres would be dope. You know, if we, if I got my 40 acres, first of all, if you got your 40 acres in a mule right now,

first of all, it wouldn't be a mule. I have to get 40 acres in like, what would you get? Like, just like a nice, like a nice car, but like,

not something that's like, I mean, 40 acres in 2022, like, God damn. Like, come on, I'm going to Montana. Like, I'm just going to start. You would take it in Montana?

I don't know. Like, I would take it in one of those, Wyoming, whatever, like, the shit that, like, Kanye was driving his shit back when he was making Yeh in the mountains. And I just start, like, get a bunch of, like, dogs and just, like, just live with my dogs on the land and shit. That would be so dope. Like, so I don't know where I would get it. But I'll tell you a story real quick. I met a lady on a plane one time. I don't know if I ever told you this story.

I was going to, to, to Peach Jam. EYBL, Nike League, Augusta, Georgia. I was going to Peach Jam. I was working Peach Jam. I meet this lady who's going back to Augusta, too. She lived in North Carolina. She was telling me she had a farm. I'm like, oh, okay.

She said, yeah. She got actually, she's like, Peach Jam. Peach Jam is like peach because peaches. I'm like, yeah, I would think that they would do it in Georgia and not in South Carolina because the plane lands in Augusta, Georgia. Then Peach Jam is in Augusta, South Carolina. Oh. And then she.

And then she goes, well, actually, South Carolina produces more peaches than Georgia. Wait, is that true? That's what she said. And then I was like, what? And she was like, yeah, actually, our farm produces more peaches than the entire state of Georgia. I was like, what? And she was like, yeah, the farm that we have produces more peaches than the entire state of Georgia. And I was like, like, how big is your farm?

And she goes, which, like, which part? And I was like, the part that produces the peaches. Damn. And she goes, yeah, that's just one part of the farm. It's about 10,000 acres. I was like, huh? That's like some Yellowstone shit. Come on.

And she was like, yeah, and she was like, but the entire farm that we have, which is fucking, I don't know, all kinds of different vegetables and stuff like that. It's 27,000 acres. And I was like, how did you guys get that much land? And she goes, well, you know, the land has been to my father's, my husband's family for a long time. and I'm like, hmm. Hmm.

Mm-hmm. But very nice lady. We had talked about the fact that her family will go to Angula all the time because obviously they're rich. She was like, yo, I still got a car. I'm going to go up there and deer hunt. She was like, you come deer hunting on the floor. I'm going to go up there.

But, you know, I'm thinking about, I think about stuff like that when I think about the 40 acres, you know, if we pull together our 40 acres, we might be able to have our whole little situation. That's what I'm saying. Like, everybody makes the joke like, oh, 40 acres. I'm like, no, like, do you understand, like, 40 acres of land? That's a lot of land. You know what I mean?

That's like life-changing shit. Let's talk about Chet Hanks real quick. So obviously Chet Hanks is in here as a goof to the audience. Chet, who I've had on the Red Pill podcast, who I've talked to before, Chet is a guy who I can't defend some of his social media antics, but I can't tell you that Chet is a good dude. It's just, it's been through a lot. Sometimes it comes out and fucked up ways.

And sometimes I've got to be like, Chet, stop. But he actually does a great job. He's really progressing as a performer. obviously the end joke is that Chad Hanks has been known to talk in Jamaican or West Indian Pottawa and there are a lot of people who think it's hilarious and a lot of people who think it is the height

of cultural appropriation and white ickiness but in this episode he essentially plays the future version of their son Sebastian he loves all the songs he's even wearing a Bluetooth thing in his ear the whole nine

what do you think about Chet in this and what do you think that character represents So I agree with you immediately when I was watching it. I'm like, oh, this is supposed to be kind of like a, what happens to bash if he, if like in the future, he becomes a chat haints figure. I was like, that is exactly what's happening. I think my issues with the episode kind of start with Chet Hanks in a couple ways. Going back to what we said in the beginning, how would Atlanta have landed in 2020?

maybe, how would it have even landed in early 2021 when Chet Hanks was at the peak of White Boy Summer. I think the joke probably would have landed a little bit better. I think I just know too much about Chet Hanks now where it's like, it went

from being like, ha ha, how funny to kind of like, this is, as you pointed out, just kind of like, a little icky. And I think that there's a level of like, if this is problematic, we could scrub this shit. of like kind of like our business type shit to this episode

where it was just like there's this part where it's like look we're scaring the white family and they're just like this is just how we show love and I'm like that is a very nuanced thing to unpack in a 30 minute episode where I do think that there is a lot of historical social reasons

that like the way that you know black people have no without doubt you're right it's like that part I was just like this is such an interesting thing that you can never unpack in a 30 minute comedy show. There's just like too much like when they're just like,

we're scaring the white people and I'm just like this is like funny but also kind of weirdly like fuck this like, I can see it, but I can see it but the fact that it's real just makes me,

it's washed over me. One thing about that Chehane's character is you think that then as soon as the fight breaks out, he turns back into a white boy, right? He screams world star. So like World Star, he's taping the fight. He doesn't give a fuck about how the family's going to look. He becomes the thing that we're scared of, right?

We're scared that we let you in and we hang out with you and you're a part of the culture. And then as soon as there's a state change, you go back to somebody that doesn't care how we look, is going to explain something with no context, it's going to do that whole thing, you know? So there you go. But to your point, yeah, I mean, you're right. You're right. It's that part of it's icky. But it's icky in the real world.

It's Ekey in the real world that that guy, but think about the character that did that. That guy was the same character that at his sister's funeral was trying to solicit work from that family. That person exists, Charles. That opportunist that exists, that person that you can come in that no, these are the same people that were sucking Elon Musk's dick on Clubhouse. I was like, don't y'all have any fucking respect for yourself? I know this is the second ringer podcast that I've brought up with it. I'm like, yo, it's like, don't y'all, come on, man. And so it is icky, and you can't unpack that in a 30-minute episode of Atlanta.

You can't unpack that in a 300-minute episode of Atlanta. But it didn't bother me because it's, you know, it played real. Wait, can I just say this too? I think the reason I love have these chats about Atlanta is that, like, I like to give Atlanta the grace to do messy shit because we watch white shows all the time that are messy as hell. And I'm like, I don't actually expect Atlanta to be perfect.

I expect Atlanta to be interesting and make us talk. And even if sometimes I'm like, I don't agree with the politics of this right now. I like that they went for it. Like I'd rather they like swing for the fences and like miss, then it just kind of be like, all right, we're going to do like the watered down version of this

for a white audience. because that's fucked up as well. And I think that it's just like, yeah, it's cool that this episode is so weird and is willing to do some shit where I'm like, uh, not with it, but still talking to you. I'm just like, you're kind of bringing me around.

I'm like, I'm glad they went for it. You know what I mean? So overall, good episode of Atlanta. So we're in lockstep that. We're enjoying the show this season, but we can see why some people aren't. You know what I mean? It's evident, like,

while some people aren't, this is a little too artsy for people. Sometimes maybe it's a little too far for people. I loved this episode. I've liked them all. But this is kind of like a situation to where I like a show about a superhero, right? But I can see why if the superhero never shows up in the show. Don't bring that on this spot. That some people might not like it.

And that doesn't mean that you're being a dick because you're saying that, hey, the guy's not in the show. Pew, Pew. Charles, you got anything before we go? Yeah, I think I want to tell everybody out there. I think what's best about Atlanta this season is that there's a version of Atlanta that just repeats season one and season two. And I think that more people would love that shit

and it would be like smooth sailing. But I do think that like I'm attracted to if there's not that many black shows out there and we're getting more every year, but there's just not that many. The ones we have that are willing to be like, we're not going to play it safe. We might do something that might piss you guys off,

that might distance some of our fan base that some people might not get. I'm with it. That happens all the time in music where I'm just like, I'll listen to an album one week and be like, this is shit. And then I'll listen to a month a year later when I'm in a different zone.

I'm like, oh, I understand what they're doing. I grew around the art. I'm not expecting the art to grow around me. As a human, you kind of, like, as you move through life and your experience, and you're like, all right, I'm going to come back to this art. What do I feel about it?

That doesn't mean that it's going to get any better or any worse. It's just that I like that Atlanta is so difficult because each episode I can come to that shit and be like, am I fucking with this or not and why not? And I don't know. It's a great journey to go on. I agree. All right.

That is Charles Holmes from The Ring of Music Show and The Midnight Boys, Peepue. I'm Van Lathen from Higher Learning with Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay and of course, the Ring ofverse. Brough, fantastic. Next week we do it again, right? Hey, of course. We're out here. This has been the Ringer Prestige Podcast feed.

Our producer is Jonathan, swole, spidey, Kermma. We thank you. We could not have done it without you, Kern. Appreciate you. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute.

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